I am a professor and endowed professor at the University of Houston where I founded and direct the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and head the graduate program in space architecture. My background deals extensively with research, planning and design of habitats, structures and other support systems for applications in space and extreme environments on Earth. I have recently written a new book titled "Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax". It can be previewed and ordered at www.climateofcorruption.com. Additional information about my book and views can be found on my YouTube address: http://www.youtube.com/climateofcorruption.

President Obama’s promise to be the most transparent administration in history is proving to be true with regard to the recent appointment of John Podesta as his high profile congressional circumvention strategist. Podesta’s belief in government by fiat is clear. As he wrote in a 2010 Center for American Progress report, “[executive power]presents a real opportunity for the Obama administration to turn its focus away from a divided Congress and the unappetizing process of making legislative sausage.”

Amidst scandals and a disastrous ObamaCare rollout, Politico writer Glenn Thrush reported that White House insiders told him Podesta’s hiring “represents the clearest sign to date that the administration’s interest is shifting the paradigm of Obama’s presidency through the forceful, unapologetic and occasionally provocative application of White House power.” Expressing little respect for constitutional separation of powers or for policy opposition, Podesta reportedly told Thrush: “They [the Executive Branch] need to focus on executive action given that they are facing a cult worthy of Jonestown in charge of one of the houses of Congress.”

Podesta can be expected to push Obama to act upon his executive authority to circumvent a Congress which the administration sees as unwilling and unable to pass legislation on climate change or much else. Politico reports that “Podesta has been urging Obama for three years to use the full extent of his authority as president to go around Congress.”

Presidential Press Secretary Jay Carney makes no bones about that priority. The Hill reports him saying: “Podesta will help implement executive actions where necessary when we can’t get cooperation out of Congress.”

Who is John Podesta?

Here’s a little background. First of all, he heads the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP), a 501(c)(3) liberal think tank which has emerged to become a driving force behind current White House agendas and messaging. CAP is also the parent organization of Campus Progress, a center that publishes a daily e-mail progress report described by the National Review as “The most aggressive, most energetic opposition research in politics.”

In 2009 CAP launched a “Progressive Media” war room as a joint project of its 501(c)(4) Action Fund and the Media Matters Action Network to ratchet up efforts of a united liberal front. According to SourceWatch, Progressive Media coordinates closely with the “Common Purpose Project”,an effort to “create message discipline among pro-Obama organizations, with a direct tie to the White House.”

John Podesta is no stranger to Democrat White House residents. He served as chief of staff to President Clinton during his second-term Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment proceedings, and led President Obama’s transition team following the 2008 election as an “outside advisor”.

The Washington Post reports that Podesta remains to be “…an influential voice within the Clinton political orbit, informally advising Hillary Rodham Clinton since she stepped down as secretary of state. In the past few weeks, he was in talks to help lead Priorities USA Action, the super PAC that supported Obama in 2012 and is positing itself to back Clinton if she runs for president in 2016.”

Last fall Podesta founded the Washington “Center for Equitable Growth”, a group within CAP that will expand class warfare messaging directed to income redistribution. This can be expected to be a central Obama/Clinton theme going forward.

As the New York Times reported, he “has occasionally criticized the administration, if gently, from his perch as the founder and former president of the Center for American Progress, a center-left public policy research group that has provided personnel and policy ideas to the administration.”

He will now be advising very much from the inside. According to the Times, he will help out on health care and “will focus in particular on climate change issues, a personal priority of Mr. Podesta’s.”

Elevating Climate Politics to New Lows:

Never mind that having witnessed the past 17 years of flat global temperatures despite ballyhooed record atmospheric CO2 levels, John Podesta is hell-bent to reheat regulatory assaults on carbon emissions. In doing so he now officially joins the political ranks of Gina McCarthy who proposed draconian carbon emission limits on new coal-fired power plants shortly after she was confirmed to lead EPA last July.

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